Background and Purpose
Six years ago, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) published a policy document titled Local Systems: A Framework for Supporting Sustained Development1 (also known as the Local Systems Framework or LSF). This Policy Implementation Assessment (PIA) aims to examine to what extent the Agency has achieved the objectives laid out in this foundational policy through shifts in processes and programs, as well as to identify opportunities to strengthen implementation. For many years and across Administrations USAID has emphasized that development programming should be designed to produce sustainable results. The challenge for USAID, and for other development actors, has been to provide clarity about what should be sustained and how to design and implement accordingly. The publication of the LSF was a major attempt at providing USAID with just that guidance, establishing how the Agency would work to achieve its vision of sustainable development, and empowering a new generation of local entrepreneurs, innovators, and community leaders to advance the development of their own communities.